On large structures such as aircraft, power coupled between antennas is often the primary cause of spurious responses in a receiver. Antenna coupling can be predicated analytically or experimentally. In the late 1960's, a coupling loss study for aircraft was performed by the University of Michigan. Equations and graphs from that study have been used to approximate coupling loss. However, the method is generally only accurate for far field conditions. Numerical electromagnetic codes such as those based on Finite Difference Time-Domain have also been used to characterize antenna performance. However, excessive computer memory and run times can make them expensive to use.
Aircraft geometric scale modeling is another method for studying coupling loss between antennas. These models simulate the electromagnetic fields that are on the full scale (or full sized) structure. These models are useful for studying the coupling loss between the collocated antennas on the full scale structures. To predicate the coupling loss on the full scale structure, it would be helpful to determine the correction factor between the full scale antennas and the scale antennas so that the scale model data can be adjusted accordingly.
Systems and methods are needed which determine the correction factor between full scale antennas and scale antennas in order to determine the coupling loss of the full scale antennas on the full scale structures based on models of the full scale structures.